Instead of sitting in class Tuesday, 7-year-old Lincoln Allen jumped in the snow, drank hot chocolate, played video games and hung out with his mother at her job at Northside Lexus.

"Mom," he said, "work is awesome."

Lincoln's mother, Melissa O'Connell, was among thousands of Houston-area parents who took their kids to work or scrambled to find last-minute day care because school district officials decided to close Tuesday.

Conditions turned out to be less treacherous than feared, however, raising questions about whether the closings were necessary.

"There will always be those who say they closed everything down for one pellet of sleet," Harris County Judge Ed Emmett said, perhaps anticipating criticism. "But our first priority is to make sure everyone is safe."

In fact, little criticism of the closing decisions emerged even though area roads, for the most part, were safe. By late afternoon Tuesday, most people responding to an unscientific poll on Chron.com said they supported the closings. Parents interviewed generally agreed.

"I might have been a little bit annoyed, at first, maybe," said Daneil Reed, an oil company employee who brought her daughter Jordan, 6, to work downtown with her Tuesday. "But this wasn't an easy call for officials, and I support their decision. The children's safety is more important than one day of inconvenience."

Burden on families

City of Houston and Harris County offices also closed Tuesday. Mayor Annise Parker said her decision was heavily influenced by those of school district officials.

"Very reluctant to close city services today, but with all school districts closed it puts a burden on our working parents," Parker said in a tweet Tuesday morning.

Terry Grier, superintendent of the Houston Independent School District, said a lot of thought went into closing the state's largest school district. The recommendation to close came from the inclement weather committee, part of the district's transportation department.

The committee is made up of staff members, school bus drivers and others charged with getting children to school, Grier said.

Committee members checked with Parker, other elected officials, colleagues at other school districts and emergency agencies, Grier said, then shared their opinions in a conference call. The panel recommended to the chief transportation officer that the schools close, who passed it on to Grier.

"The ultimate decision is my decision," Grier said. "When you have this kind of front coming through, you don't know whether you are going to get it right or wrong until the actual weather arrives."

Difficult decision

As school transportation officials grappled with the decision Monday, forecasters were predicting icy roads by midmorning, after children had arrived at school, he said.

The worry was that bus drivers would drop the children at school, then face icy roads that would make it difficult for them to return to the barn for gasoline. If they succeeded in fueling, the buses could be negotiating icy roads and putting the lives of students in danger as they returned home, he said.

Parents grew impatient as school officials waited for the best information.

"We were getting banged pretty hard yesterday with phone calls and Twitter for not making a decision by 3:30," Grier said. "Everybody said, 'What's wrong with you? Why are you taking so long?' "

The inclement weather committee recommendation cinched his decision. "I have never once ruled against a recommendation that came from our staff," he said. He issued the order about 8:30 p.m. Monday.

Many preschool and day care facilities take their lead from HISD. Parent Breann Nash said she might have had an easier time accepting the closure of her toddler's day care center had she not gone through the same exercise last week.

"The real hard part was, we just did this on Friday," said Nash, an interior designer for an architecture firm in Greenway Plaza. She went to work Tuesday with 3-year-old Logan in tow but finished her day working at home with Logan napping in his own bed.

"I brought an iPad for him to play with, but I really couldn't concentrate. I was trying to make sure he wasn't bothering my co-workers or digging into drawers," she said.

'Best information'

Grier said a factor in deciding to close school Tuesday was Emmett's decision at about 4 p.m. to close county government buildings. Emmett likewise labored over the decision, but ultimately came down on the side of caution, he said.

Emmett, like Grier, said he was mindful of the timing predicted by the forecasts. Ice was expected after the rush hour.

"People would have gotten up, gone to work and school and then we would have had a potential nightmare scenario of people trying to get home," Emmett said. "We had to go with the best information we had."